On Tuesday, April 8, 2014, CEW(UK) welcomed Jane Bellhouse, business development director for Philips Consumer Lifestyle UK, to talk about how Philips is playing a leading role in bringing safe, effective and innovative beauty devices from salons into our homes. Philips has discovered many modern women are turning away from traditional methods of body hair removal, such as shaving and waxing, and are trying out the latest salon innovations in the market because of the longer-term benefits of such devices. With the global sales of electrolysis and IPL hair removal systems having grown by 23% over the last year and equating to over £26 million worth of sales, Philips strives to be at the forefront of this technological progression.

Bellhouse first gave a brief history of her career within the beauty industry, beginning her journey at FMCG working at Colgate-Palmolive. She then continued on to Boots UK, where she worked in category management for men’s dental hygiene and deodorants. This involved a range of aspects such as product pricing and own brand development, right down to the visual elements of the store shelves. It was here she worked on the No7 brand with a broad range of responsibilities, from advertising to the development of new shades. Following this, she took her extensive knowledge of the beauty industry and implemented it into the launch of the Pure Beauty stores. This took the characteristics of the Boots beauty halls and created standalone stores. She has now been at Philips in her current position of beauty development director for five months and attributes three pieces of advice to her success.

Have a true passion for what you do and the industry you do it in.

Try a variety of roles to get a good scope and bring fresh ideas.

Understand how a business makes money.

Bellhouse then moved on to discuss “techno-beauty” through the ages and how products such as lipsticks and hairdryers were all beauty innovations of their time. This led onto into discussing the role Philips takes within the beauty industry. With over 20 million beauty products sold worldwide each year, Philips is striving to be the number one global electric beauty brand for women. She described the company’s aim to listen to what the consumer wants and create smarter beauty products that provide long lasting results, backed by science.

She followed this statement with details of some of Philips’ latest launches: RéAura, offering laser skin rejuvenation; Visapure for facial cleansing; and Lumea for IPL hair removal. Finally, Bellhouse revealed a new product to the market that is due to be released in just weeks, the Lumea Compact.

To conclude her talk, Bellhouse explained that not only is Philips innovating in beauty routines but also is working in other industries, including CT scanners that can detect cancer earlier than conventional ones and even space travel. She also pointed out that skin care is relatively new to Philips and is an area they are ambitious to continue to grow.